Whatevs

Obviously managing three kiddos, keeping house, making exercise a priority, and doing school, keeping up with this blog has been difficult. We have been doing Five in a Row most weeks since I last wrote, and we are doing all kinds of learning in the Gerlach house. We took a trip to Astoria for 4 days for Spring Break, and it was a great trip too! I have been praying and considering what to do for next year and have a lot planned for Caley's kindergarten year. We decided to refer her for a special education evaluation with Mukilteo School District because of some concerns with her speech articulation, and depending on whether she qualifies will determine some of what we can do for her school next year. I am looking into working with a district north of Spokane so we can access state funds and be reimbursed for some of our costs such as piano lessons if we choose to do them. There are some legalities that need to be determined however, and I'm currently weighing whether the reimbursement is worth adhering to the state's rules. Such as, I'm not sure if I want to commit to a lesson plan for next year when it's our first official year as homeschoolers and we'll (I'll) be learning the ropes doing school and balancing the other two kids and such. I'd kind of rather keep things simple until I understand more of how this homeschooling thing goes.

However I have decided to use a unit study curriculum called KONOS which arranges the units by God's attributes. In the fall we will do a unit on attentiveness and study such things as hearing, ears and eyes, sounds and music, frontiersmen, and indians. To supplement we will also be using Saxon K Math three days a week and 100 Easy Lessons for phonics/reading. I'm not sure what to use after Caley's worked through the phonics book, but I for sure don't want to squish her love for reading, and may just assign her books to read and do spelling lists, etc. Still praying/talking/deciding on that one.

I'm also realizing how excited I'm getting about school! Field trips and books I can enjoy with my kids, seeing them love to learn, I can't wait! Just this week we were researching about Russia because our FIAR book was Russia when I went in another room and captured a housefly! I showed it to the girls and then suggested we draw a picture of it. I put it in a bowl and we each drew it the best we could. We had to look closely to see how many wings and legs the fly had. Instant science lesson that I couldn't have planned if I wanted to!

We have been reading some fun books that I need to at least list here so we don't forget. I would like to get several of them for our personal library.

Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel- cute, cute book that almost made me cry!

The Glorious Flight- The girls loved saying, "Papabluray!" because the main character was Papa Louis Bleriot who flew over the English Channel

How to Make an Apple Pie and See the World- this one was adorable! Caley and I acted out parts of the book and it made her little imagination take off! We also read the spin-off book by the same author "How to Make a Cherry Pie and See the USA"

Grandfather's Journey- We weren't as much into this one...

Cranberry Thanksgiving- This was a cute, cute story. It in they sing "We Gather Together" and it gave me the idea to open our school days next year with a hymn, either on the piano or on CD. The book also had "16 Men On A Dead Man's Chest" which the girls loved because lately we've been listening to pirate music in the car.

Another Celebrated Dancing Bear- This one took place in Russia and Caley knew the drill- find Russia on the map and color the Russian flag.